What Is Ignav and What Does Its Flight Prices and Booking Links API Do?

Updated

Ignav is a self-serve API that returns live flight fares and direct booking links as structured JSON. You send it a route and date, it returns itineraries with prices and an ignav_id, and you use that ID to fetch booking URLs from airlines and OTAs. It fits flight search apps, price trackers, and AI travel tools — and you can start with 1,000 free requests, no credit card required.

What the API actually returns

A fare search returns a JSON object with the route, date, and an itineraries array. Each itinerary contains:

  • Price — amount, currency, and a status field (the example shows "verified")
  • Outbound segments — carrier, flight number, operating carrier, departure/arrival airports, local and UTC times with timezones, duration, and aircraft
  • Cabin class and a requires_self_transfer flag
  • ignav_id — the key you pass to the booking-links endpoint

The ignav_id is the part that matters most: it's the bridge between "here's a price" and "here's where to buy it." Without it, you'd have a fare list but no way to convert it into a booking action.

How a request works

The documented example is a one-way search:

curl -X POST "https://ignav.com/api/fares/one-way" \
  -H "X-Api-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"origin":"SFO","destination":"JFK","departure_date":"2026-11-03"}'

You supply an origin, destination, and departure date; you get back the itinerary structure above. The docs also describe round-trip search and a flexible search that supports one or two ordered legs and open-jaw trips — useful if your product needs multi-city or return itineraries rather than a single leg.

The workflow is two calls: search fares, then pass an ignav_id to request direct airline and OTA booking URLs. That's the "from question to booking link" pattern the site describes.

What it's built for

The site groups its intended use cases into three:

Use case What you'd do with it
Flight search apps Search fares, filter results, fetch booking links for any route
Price trackers & alerts Poll routes on a schedule, compare fares over time, notify users on drops
AI travel tools Look up airports, search live fares, generate booking links from AI workflows

There's also an MCP server for AI agent integrations, which is relevant if you're wiring this into an LLM-based assistant rather than a traditional app.

Getting started

  1. Get an API key — sign up for free; the first 1,000 requests don't require a credit card.
  2. Search fares — start with one-way or round-trip; flexible search covers ordered legs and open-jaw.
  3. Fetch booking links — pass an ignav_id to get airline and OTA booking URLs.

There's a Playground for testing requests without writing code, and client examples in cURL, Python, and JavaScript.

Billing and limits worth knowing

The site states that only successful requests are billed and that there is no rate limit. Pricing details live on the pricing page, so check there for current rates before you commit to a volume. The free tier is 1,000 requests with no credit card required — enough to validate the integration before spending anything.

When Ignav is a good fit

Choose it if you need live fares plus a bookable link in one flow, and you want to build on top of structured JSON rather than scrape or aggregate multiple sources yourself. It's a particularly natural fit for price-tracking products (the schedule-polling pattern is explicitly supported) and for AI agents that need to answer "what does this flight cost and where do I book it."

Look elsewhere if you need inventory beyond flights, or if your product requires booking and payment processing rather than handing the user off to an airline or OTA — Ignav returns links, not completed bookings.